In wireless communications, users are allocated radio resources for a variety of communication services. An important resource in a wireless system is the radio spectrum allocated over a coverage area. Since the radio spectrum is a scarce and expensive shared commodity, allocation and usage of the radio spectrum is tightly controlled by international regulatory bodies. A given wireless network is generally provided a spectrum allocation over a certain geographic area over a certain period of time. The radio spectrum allocation may involve, for example, specific frequency assignments and may require compliance with various radio regulations limiting the transmission power, antenna coverage, bandwidth utilization, spectral leakage, etc. of the provided communication services
The management and control of allocated radio resources is known as Radio Resource Management (RRM). Radio resources include, for example, frequency channels, time slots, pseudo-noise (PN) codes, etc. which are allocated to wireless users to provide communication services such as voice, video, data, paging, messaging, positioning, etc. The RRM assignment process may be, for example, static (e.g., relatively fixed over a long time period) or dynamic (e.g., variable in a changing environment). In one aspect, the goal of RRM is efficient spectral utilization. For example, in a cellular communication system, spectral utilization may be measured in units of bits per second (bps) per Hz per square kilometer (bps/Hz/km2). In this case, an efficient RRM process results in a relatively higher value of spectral utilization.
In a typical wireless cellular communication system which employs a plurality of cells over a coverage area, each cell comprising at least one radio transmitter, many essential RRM parameters are configurable on a cell by cell basis. However, since the quantity of cells in a typical wireless communication system may be quite numerous, for example, on the order of thousands, it is impractical for the network operator to optimize the RRM parameters individually for each cell. Moreover, each cell operates over a large range of radio propagation environments, user mobility types, services, and traffic variations. Therefore, it is difficult and impractical for the network operator to determine the optimal RRM parameters for each wireless system cell to optimize spectral utilization.